


with love from Derry

by mintpearlvoice



Series: clown meme scream team [3]
Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Endgame Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier, F/F, F/M, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Multi, Polyamorous Losers Club (IT), The Losers Club (IT) Love Each Other, The Losers Club (IT) Stay in Derry, compulsory heterosexuality? oh you mean literal hell?, eddie's coma of sadness, implied sexual coercion by what may or may not be myra kaspbrak, maine's haunted
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-14
Updated: 2019-10-16
Packaged: 2020-12-15 20:54:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21024470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mintpearlvoice/pseuds/mintpearlvoice
Summary: After defeating Pennywise, the Losers- plus a few honorary club members- crash indefinitely in a Derry Air B&B.Eddie hovers between life and death, while Richie is lonely and repressed and gay, and all his friends are so blissfully in love that it's driving him nuts.





	1. Chapter 1

Derry has turned into a sabbatical. Nearly everyone Richie cares about, and everyone they care about, are gloriously, splendidly happy. They’ve rented a house on Mike’s street that was up for sale; Mike practically lives there, too. He’s blissful about the option of leaving Derry, has checked himself out a knee-high stack of Lonely Planet guidebooks that he’s going through with three packets of Post-It notes. Everyone has offered him their homes or apartments; he has no idea which he wants to stay in first. He’s started talking to a college friend of Beverly’s, some woman named Kay who that bastard Tom beat up on his way out of town. It’s gone beyond emails and into constant phone calls and video chats, and at night Richie has to pull the pillow over his head so he can’t hear Mike talking about everything they’ll do once Kay’s back on her feet again, and her low, throaty laugh.  
Ben and Beverly- benandbeverly, they might as well be- drift around the house basking in the improbable sunlight of each other, shedding crumpled drafts of ideas and ballads and sketches like snowflakes, baking structural cakes.  
(Richie is never hungry at mealtimes, but jolted awake from a nightmare on the wrong side of dawn, he cut a whole piece of cake and ate it with a spoon, staring at the closed cabinets, staring into the dark.)  
There are shared sketchbooks that they write notes to each other in, even though they’re staying in the same goddamn house. There is- nightly, and sometimes after brunch, and they always forget to keep the noise down- a great deal of sex. To make matters even more teeth-grinding, what’s between them has spilled over into some befuddling tangle of billandaudra-and-benandbeverly. It involves Beverly sobbing into Audra’s bosom while Audra pets her hair protectively, as well as Beverly declaring that Audra is her muse and locking herself in the room she’s claimed as a workspace for hours while the sewing machine whirs like mad, and then letting no one but Audra see the result. Ben bought Bill a standing desk. Bill is helping Beverly draft a Ted Talk. Between the four of them, they have carpeted the floor of the den with air mattresses. Beverly is sketching a mural on butcher paper taped to the walls, something from the new story idea Bill’s seized on. The unused half of the garage is starting to fill up with strange objects that they bring home from the antique store. “It’s going to be an art installation,” Beverly tells him when he asks, and Ben says, “We’re going to make a haunted house and film it,” while Bill and Audra say either immersive theatre or sight-specific work inspired by the films of Jan Svankmajer. The den is always very quiet at night until everyone thinks Richie is asleep. He does not bother telling them that he doesn’t sleep; that he coaxed a local doctor into upping his Ritalin prescription from “provides me with a brain-to-mouth filter” to “my heart beats at the speed of a hummingbirds, and I no longer need to rest.” He is too afraid to close his eyes.  
  
Stan wanted to tell Patty about what had happened. All of it, not just his suicide attempts. “No,” everyone said, or “Absolutely not,” or “You need antidepressants, not antipsychotics.” Of course, being Stan, he went right ahead and told her anyway. None of the Losers had any knowledge of this aspect of their reunion until, at breakfast, Patty mused, “But the circus wasn’t even popular until the eighteen-hundreds, with PT Barnum. How would it have even know what a clown was?” and Mike nearly choked on his fork.  
When everyone stared at her: “What? Stan’s always had nightmares. At least now I know why. And I would have come right down into the sewers with all of you, if he’d let me. I absolutely could have helped.”  
“My wife, everyone,” Stan says dreamily. “Have I mentioned I’m one of the luckiest men in the world?” Richie fights the urge to roll his eyes.  
Despite how obnoxiously in love they are- their private language of baby talk and incomprehensible acronyms, how she ties his tie for him when he telecommutes- he likes Patty. Normally women want something from him that he’s not prepared to give, and half of his conversations revolve around finding what that something is, but she’s entirely unimpressed by his fame.  
She’s practical to the point of being the only one who remembers to buy paper towels. She refilled his prescriptions for him when he forgot and had panicked about it. He likes her, and understands why Stan does, too.

  
And Eddie?  
Eddie is the only one not staying in the rented house. He’s not staying in the rented house because he’s in the intensive care unit at Derry General. He’s in the intensive care unit at Derry General because he wounded an already-weakened It, shattered its body and its immortality in one fearless blow. Overcome by agony, it had fought back in the only way it could: showing the Deadlights, as if it was determined to drag Eddie down with it.  


The doctors say there’s no explanation for why he’s in a coma. That all his blood tests are normal, that his brain scans show he might as well be sleeping. There is an explanation, just not one they’ll accept.  
Whatever Eddie saw in the creature’s death throes- it broke something in him. Something that might never be made whole again.  



	2. Chapter 2

Mike’s got some new project. He’s covered a bulletin board with photocopied newspaper clippings. They seem to have no connection between them: bones in windblown tall grass, a family photo with a dog, a burned-out school, the cover of a 90s issue of Rolling Stone, a wrecked vintage car.

“So what’s all this for?” Richie asks through a mouthful of toast.

“Maine’s haunted,” he says with a shrug. “Haven’t figured out how or why… but I think there’s something here. Something that goes deeper than It, maybe even something that attracted It in the first place. I don’t know, but I’ll tell you when things start making sense.”

Whatever that means, he doesn’t want to let his gaze settle on any one picture for too long.

“Hiya, Richie. You going to visit Eddie again today?” Beverly says, breezing into the kitchen.

“Same as every day.”

“I’m going out to sketch in the Barrens, but I can stop by on my way home. Text me when you’re heading out, yeah?” She looks prepared for a trek through mud and weeds; beat-up sneakers, a flannel tied around her waist, hair carelessly half-up, and Stanley’s binoculars hanging from her belt.

There’s nothing he can wear to prepare himself for the daily shock of seeing someone he loves in a coma, hovering between life and death. For the incongruity of how everyone else is continuing with their lives, scheduling time in to visit Eddie, but not letting that be the sum total of what they do. How can they smile and laugh? Or, maybe the right question is, why can’t he?

“Sure, will do.” Like the idea of heading out- of leaving Eddie alone to his battle, even for a moment- doesn’t break his damn heart.

He’s heading through the corridors of Derry General when a tiny intern in a clean white labcoat sprints up to him, practically vibrating out of her skin with excitement. “Oh, gosh! You’re Richie Tozier, aren’t you? I loved your jokes on that sitcom when I was in college. The Bronx accent- can we get a selfie together?” Already she’s taking out her phone, a hopeful look in her wide eyes. She can’t be more than a year or two out of nursing school at the most.

He has a Voice for times like these, when people recognize one of their own who made it big in the world out there. It’s not a celebrity impression or a funny accent- just his own voice, the way it used to be, the way it would be if he wasn’t so consumed by grief. “Sure. Always happy to meet a fan.” They take three selfies, and he makes different silly faces in all of them, and afterwards he dares to venture: “There hasn’t been any change in Mr. Kaspbrak’s condition, has there?” It feels ridiculous to be calling him Mr. Kaspbrak instead of Eddie. Like he’s a child pretending to be a grownup.

“Not that I know of. But the doctors have done some more scans. I’m not sure exactly what tests, but they sent them to the hospital in Portland, and there’s a neurologist who’s going to review them. One of the best in his field.”

“Let me know if anything changes,” he says, faking a smile, and trudges down the hallway. He goes into Eddie’s room.

Eddie’s lost weight in these past few weeks. He’s always been trim; now he looks skeletal. The lines on his face have deepened. Sometimes tears run down his cheeks, or his mouth twitches, like he’s trying to grimace.

Richie tries not to dwell on how shitty his (friend? lover? Crush?)… how shitty his Eddie looks. He sinks into an uncomfortable plastic hair with a sigh and pulls a battered paperback from his backpack. “Allrighty, Eds Spaghedds. We’re into week three of my annual Terry Pratchett re-read, which means we’re well into Discworld. Today, I’m going to introduce you to one of my favorite characters in all of fiction, Sir Samuel Vimes. He’s a fictional cop, which is what prevents him from being a bastard, and over the course of the series, he’s going to try to arrest a dragon, the ruler of the city-state, and the abstract concept of War itself. Sounds cool, right?”

No response. He's used to that. He keeps his gaze focused on the pages as he reads, knowing that if he glances at Eddie, his voice will break. Just the same as his heart. 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> myra? eddie's version of myra? pennywise-as-myra? pennywise as eddie's version of myra? a pocket dimension? freddy kreuger dreamspace? hell? whatever's going on, it's big yikes, so please check tags before reading.

“I’m so happy you’re home, Eddie darling,” Myra says, giving him yet another peck on the cheek. “Those friends of yours sound like quite frankly awful people… not to revel in your misfortune, but it really pleases me that you’ve had a falling-out. Of course, you’ll always have me.”

He has been having the strangest dreams. Crickets swarming over his bed while he sleeps, climbing into his open mouth, and he wakes up choking. Hobos touching him with the winking holes of oozing sores. Derry flooding while he’s still in the sewers, and he can’t find a way out and ends up trapped, slowly drowning, gasping fruitlessly for air, waking up gasping too. He wants to run. Throw all the doors in the house open until he finds one that leads out, keep running, keep running- let him run- and never return. His arm is in a sling, so he’s been staying home from work.

Myra has some vacation days saved up, and she’s using them to look after him. She says things like “Eddie, aren’t you glad I’m here to look after you? You’d never be able to do all this for yourself.” And “Eddie, sweetheart, you’re looking peaky. Why don’t we cuddle?” Her hands are hot against his skin and the way she drums her fingers on his knee makes him think of a spider’s little legs ticking away under its round body. She’s crocheting, weaving a web that spirals outward day by day. “It’s a blanket, Eddie dear,” she says when he asks about the pattern. “One day it’ll be big enough to cover you, and you can sleep nice and tight.” He doesn’t remember how long she’s been working on it, but it’s almost done. A blanket that he can pull over his head to block out the whole world. To block out how badly he’s fucked up.

Myra sits and watches her reality shows and knits her round blanket, and Eddie stares in the vague direction of the television and dwells on his mistakes.

He’ll drag himself to work eventually. Change his number so the texts from the other Losers asking what happened, asking questions he can’t bear to answer, will quit piling up on his phone. Until then, it’s rerun hours. Not reruns of the bachelorette, reruns of “Eddie has Ruined the Best Thing He Ever Fucking Had.”

The look on Richie’s face that night in his room at the Derry Town House. The way he almost tripped over his own feet to move away- the way he took off his glasses so he wouldn’t have to look at Eddie. The sneer of disgust and betrayal and shock on his face. “Have I ever given you that kind of impression? I thought we were friends. Normal, ordinary, regular friends. I’m not like that, and honestly, I’m insulted that you think I am… I need some time by myself to think about this.” Eddie had left Derry that same night. He didn’t want to be around when Richie told the other Losers his deepest, darkest secret. When their smiles changed from wholehearted to fake with strained pity.

Fuck. How could he have been so stupid? He feels so disgusted with himself.

That’s when Myra turns off the TV and takes his hand. “You know, Eddie, I’m simply floating on air that you’re feeling better. Why don’t we go upstairs and make love?”

He’s learned over the course of their marriage that it’s just easier to say yes to her. Avoid the waterworks. Maybe that makes him insensitive, but he just prefers peace and quiet. “Sure,” he says, and follows her towards the staircase. Something flutters in the back of his mind, like a trapped firefly. It’s like he left the gas on in the kitchen, or his work laptop at the office… something important he ought to remember. “Wait, floating on air?”

“Walking on air, sweetheart. You must have misheard.”

He can’t say why, but he pushes ahead of her, forcing himself to take the stairs two at a time.

(He doesn’t see her eyes… the eyes of the thing that looks like Myra Kaspbrak… glow orange as it glares at the back of his head.)


End file.
